


Despite the Dark

by phantom_of_the_keurig



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom - Susan Kay, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, Major Character Injury, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 03:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10733499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantom_of_the_keurig/pseuds/phantom_of_the_keurig
Summary: Wracked with morphine withdrawal and the loss of his sight, Erik is doomed to suffer inside a Freak Show until the end of his days. The chances of escaping are nonexistent, for how could he ever escape the leering crowds and iron bars that imprisoned him while blind?





	Despite the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there. New little story for you. Well, not little. Actually not at all. What started out as a quick one shot quickly turned into a multi chapter length story. In fact, this first chapter was originally supposed to be a quick prologue. 
> 
> I should probably explain some random aspects of this story that may be confusing. While reading this first chapter, you're probably going to ask 'Hey, what the heck is a snatcher and why is that one guy so embarrassingly English?" First, the concept of a snatcher came to me while brainstorming how Erik ends up at the freak show. Essentially, snatchers are people who round up 'abnormal' individuals and take them to shady fairs and circuses that need new attractions. They aren't very moral people, to say the least. And to answer the second part, why is this one random background character so annoyingly English? Honestly, it's because there was some random movie playing in the background while I wrote this and the american actor was not doing the most authentic English accent. I guess it just stuck in my head as I wrote.
> 
> Any way, please enjoy! I hope to update next Wednesday.

Chapter 1

* * *

 

His feet ached and his back screamed a little louder with each step. Erik had paced the same path in his so home for so long that he was surprised there was not at least a small groove in the floor from his steps. He couldn’t remember exactly how long he had been mindlessly walking back and forth this time. He guessed at least twelve hours, if not more.

Time, a troublesome little thing. A pleasant side effect of the morphine was that it made time ease by so smoothly that hours melted into days.

His inner arm still stung, and he gently brought up his other hand to massage the bruised spot in the crook of his arm. It had been years since he had fallen low enough to crave a needle in his vein and the numbing release that came with it. It had been even _longer_ since he had indulged in as much morphine as he had lately. Not enough to kill him, but just enough to almost toe the line of ‘ _too much’_.

“Desperate times.” He slurred. His weary voice, and the realization that he had just spoken to no one but his empty home, made him pause. He blinked a few times and the haze around his mind cleared a bit. He supposed the last course of morphine must have started to wear off.

Abruptly, the guilt he had been fighting to drive off with narcotics welled up in the base of his throat. Erik groaned and backed up until his back thumped against a wall. He shakily slid down until he met floor and brought his knees to his chest. He rested his forehead on his knees and gently began to rock. The same screams that had haunted him since _that night_ returned, like they always did when the sweet, desensitizing cloud of morphine started to fade. The drug did its job well, but it could only do so when it was pumping through his system.

Even morphine did not last forever, and it could not always guard him from the shame and horror that loomed over him ever since _that night_.

His shoulders began to tremble. Erik griped the sides of his head and coiled his fingers through his hair until it stung. The morphine definitely must have worn off a little, he thought bitterly as a growing panic began to settle in his chest.

Despite being unable to accurately pinpoint time while nearly comatose from narcotics and deep below the surface, he still knew _that night_ had to have happened at least a week ago by now. Everything had spun entirely out of control _that night_ , and he had snapped. Seeing _her_ with him, seeing _her_ smile brilliantly at the boy’s promise to keep _her_ safe- it had been too much.

If he was honest, Erik didn’t remember much after the scene on the rooftop. One moment he was gripping the sides of a statue so tight that his knuckles were ghostly white, and the next he was standing dazedly as the chandelier gave one final creak and fell. He had fled to his home then, where the small wooden case of morphine happily greeted him.

It occurred to him now, with a fierce draw of breath, that he did not know if anyone _died_. A more terrible thought formed just then, and he frantically pulled the collar of his shirt away from his neck as he struggled for air. He threw his head back against the wall and wheezed.

Erik did not know if _Christine_ was alive.

He remembered spotting the chandelier crashed and shattered half way on stage, but the memory did nothing to soothe his fear. His body urged him up off the floor and unsteadily toward the door. He had to know, there was no other option, and he had to check on Christine this very instant. The uncertainty of her condition made him feel, somehow, even more wretched than he already did.

Although the drug had partially worn off, Erik knew it had yet to fully leave his system. He had no time to sit and wait for it to entirely clear out, and he couldn’t risk waiting and then having an onset of withdrawal.

He had no clue where his mask was, likely hidden behind some overturned piece of furniture, but he did not stop to search for it. In one sluggish motion, he pushed the front door open and swung the dark hooded cloak off the rack.

The air beneath the Opera House was not what one would consider fresh, but it was close enough for Erik after many days locked away. He still felt fairly strung out, and he knew it was probably best not to journey above in his state. That responsible thought was entirely too sane for him to even consider at the moment.

He stumbled towards the damp edge of the still lake and without a second thought, he dropped to his knees and plunged his head below the frigid surface. The shock to his brain and the rest of his body was so powerful that he nearly gagged. Erik snapped his head out of the water and choked back the sick sensation in his throat. He blinked until his vision was as clear as it was going to get considering his state. He shook his head and water flew from his hair and face as he stood on wobbly legs.

Now, feeling more lethargic instead of dazed, Erik made his way to the small boat and began the voyage across the lake. The rock of the boat made his unsteady legs feel even more so, and he tried to keep his balance. Nevertheless, he eventually docked on the other side much slower than he usually would.

He swung the heavy cloak about his person and reached a hand up to push back his dripping wet hair. It clung to his face and neck in an unruly, soaking mess. “You look great.” He said sourly, before pausing and realizing that he had again spoken out loud to himself.

With a short huff, Erik slicked back his tangled hair as best as he could and rested the large hood of the cloak on his head. He veered toward a smaller passage to his left and silently made his way through the cellars.

* * *

 

Erik was, once again, very thankful that it was the dead of night as he arrived a few blocks from Christine’s flat. While he did not enjoy prowling about the streets of Paris, he didn’t mind it as much late at night. It made travelling through the city much easier.

Although Christine did not live in the grandest part of the city, it was far from the slums. The relatively peaceful district put him at ease as he walked closer to her flat on the corner of the street.

His first mistake was venturing outside of his home while not entirely sober. While his second mistake was letting his guard down.

In a city as massive as Paris, you’re bound to still see a few souls no matter what time of day, he knew this very well from years of avoiding the public. Erik _had_ noticed the small, twig like figure of a man in the beginning of his route above ground. The lingering fog of the morphine and the silence of the late hour blinded Erik from noticing the very same man appear on the exact street as him four more times. He didn’t even notice when two other men had joined the first.

A flicker in Christine’s window caught his attention and he stopped a few buildings down from her flat. Faintly, he thought he saw a dull glow of a candle still on in her room. The idea puzzled him, but only for a moment. All at once and without any warning, his body was yanked to the right as two pairs of hands wrestled him into an alley.

If he was any other man, any other normal man, Erik knew he could have screamed and hollered for help. In a quiet part of town like this, at least a few concerned citizens would have come running. But he was not a normal man, and bringing more people to his location would be more detrimental than helpful.

“ _Whadduh_ tell ya! I knew it, the second I seen that bloody hood!” A painfully obnoxious voice whispered in heavy English. Erik’s hand came up to push away the grimy one that reached for his hood, but his limbs moved much more sluggishly than they should have. One of the large hands holding his shoulder struck out and slammed his wrist to the wall.

“Oi, do you speak English?” The voice asked, and the hood on his face came down with a mighty tug. Three different gasps sounded around him, and Erik glared at the small man before him. “God, you’re a rough sight. I guess you don’t speak English though.” The wiry man sniggered and elbowed the massive tree trunk of a man to Erik’s right.

“I knew it, didn’t I, Dean. I knew he was gonna be a catch. I mean, _whos_ gonna go for a stroll in the middle of the night with a bloody hood on ‘ _cept_ for a freak!”

The absolute stupidity of his brilliant, spur of the moment plan to visit Christine made Erik growl. Any other night he would have easily been able to escape the three men, even the massive one named Dean. Tonight, though, the mere effort of trying to swipe together some sort of plan was mentally impossible. His thoughts felt jumbled and scattered as he desperately tried to grip onto _anything_ that even resembled an idea.

“You’re snatchers.” Erik said plainly. He sounded dimwitted even to himself, and the three men chuckled.

“Well, I’m sure glad you can speak English. My French is rubbish, terrible really. Makes things loads easier for me if you speak English.” The small man smirked and turned his head to the side at the sound of hoofbeats somewhere down the street.

Erik heard the sound too and lolled his head to the side to listen. He didn’t have much time, and he tried again to speak with an ounce of dignity. “Are you going to sell me off to the nearest side show attraction?” His voice still slurred, but he willed his tone to stay as even as he could.

The hoofbeats grew closer, and now Erik could hear the familiar rattle of a carriage too. “I ‘ _fink_ you’ve been through this before then, eh?” The runty man said smugly.

Erik dully glanced over the man’s thin, freckled face. With an annoyed sigh, he slowly stated, “You are _painfully_ British sounding, you know. Are you aware of that, or has no one told you?”

The man’s scrawny face wrinkled up in disbelief before his surprisingly firm fist collided into Erik’s twisted cheek. He hissed in pain and tried to jerk his body away from the two other men restraining him. Of all the places on his body that could hurt, the deformed half of his face was extremely sensitive to even mild touch at times.

A carriage halted somewhere outside of the alley. Erik’s mind went into a hysteric overdrive as it tried to find any way out. He had precious little time now before these men would carry him off to the highest bidder. He started to panic as his mind all but blocked anything except the memory of the _last time_ he had been carted off to a sideshow.

He had been eight years old then, and nothing more than a ghastly looking bag of bones. Yet in the present, Erik felt just as terrified as he had then, decades ago.

“Load him up won’t ya.” The man with a now wounded pride and bruised fist said. The massive man, Dean, forced Erik’s head back as the other man at his side brought a filthy rag to his nose and mouth. Erik knew not to breathe whatever the rag was laced in, but a swift knee to his side made him gasp.

Immediately his vision began to sway and double before slowly fading in and out. It didn’t matter that he fought to keep his body awake, within a few seconds he felt his limbs grow as heavy as lead. His body began to tip over to one side until he fell. His mind went black before he ever knew if he hit the ground or not.

* * *

 

His head throbbed so fiercely that he truly felt like it would burst at any moment. The pounding agony behind his eye sockets was nauseating. Erik was so far beyond disoriented that he simply kept as still as he could until the room stopped feeling as if it was spinning.

Clearly, the morphine had long ago cleared entirely out of his system. He guessed that at least six hours or so had passed, since he felt each and every throb in his head. If the morphine was still in him, he wouldn’t have felt like dying.

With his mind free to work properly without the constraint of narcotics, Erik ignored the pain as much as he could and tried to find his bearings. He didn’t dare move, but from his place on the floor he knew that it was made of wood, and it was dirty. Bits of straw and muck dug into his shoulder and back as he sprawled out. His body ached, just slightly, but he knew the feeling well enough to know that the tenderness in his limbs and chest was from the early beginnings of withdrawal, not from being battered with fists.

What struck him as odd, out of everything thus far, was the material wrapped around the back of his head and over his eyes. The restraint panicked him, and his hands flew to the wrappings without thinking.

He froze and held his breath. It wasn’t some sort of crude blindfold tied around his head, it was a few layers of _bandages_. Before he could tear them away, a smooth voice made his body run cold with ice.

“I heard a story once,” The voice, a woman’s voice, said, “a famous story that grew so much larger every time it was told that I brushed it off. I believed it was nothing more than a typical fireside, gypsy tale.”

Erik dropped his hands from his head and carefully pushed up from his back onto his elbows. His swiveled his head and followed the voice as its owner patrolled about somewhere near him.

“But what a grand story it was. Picture it, a young boy, caught stealing bread and cheese from a caravan. As fate would have it, this young boy is grossly malformed. They say he looked like a corpse, as if he had risen from his tiny coffin to swipe a mouthful of food. Of course, how could his captor ever leave him in the wild to starve? So, the little corpse earns himself a pretty job, showing off his _handsome_ face.”

The woman laughed, cruel and high, and Erik grit his teeth. Whoever spoke to him was no ordinary circus goon, and her teasing tale of his past made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. A sharp chill ran up his spine and he shuddered.

“Oh, but this naughty little boy doesn’t like his job, not one bit. So, he tries to run away, again and again. His keeper builds a dozen different cages and tries chaining up the boy a hundred different ways. Still the boy runs away, over and over, until one day- his keeper catches him and decides to snap his little foot in half.” Another cold laugh from the woman made Erik flinch as his left foot began to ache with a phantom pain.

“I didn’t think it was a real story of course, especially the part about him growing up and killing his keeper, only to vanish and never be seen again. That was before I saw you, of course.”

A piercing clang of metal on metal made him jump back. He knew the awful sound meant he was in a cage even before his hands flew out and met thick bars. Like a frantic animal, Erik wildly reached from bar to bar until he had pivoted in a full circle. He felt deathly ill then, much more than he should in the initial stages of morphine withdrawal.

Her calm voice suddenly bit out from behind him and he spun to face her. “I knew I couldn’t chance your escape. If what _everything_ they say about you is true, you’re the greatest risk I could ever gamble on.” He heard her footsteps retreat from him and his hands shot to the bandages on his head. He ripped and tugged as he tried to remove them in a frenzied blur.

His heart dropped to the pit of his empty stomach as her voice struck him again, “I had to take some safety measures you see. Well _, no you don’t actually,_ see that is _._ But don’t worry! Your face is still perfectly fine. For a living corpse, of course.”

The sound of her disappeared and the bandages fell from his face after one final tug. His eyelids felt heavy and stuck together, as if he had caked a bit of mud on them before shutting them tight for a few hours. Erik tried to pry his eyes open and yelped at the bitter sting inside his eyes. _“No no no no no-”_ He muttered desperately, and with an excruciating rip of his hands he forced his eyes wide open.

He saw nothing. The agony of keeping his eyelids open was too much to bare, and he shut them in defeat. The reality of his situation began to weigh on his shoulders until he felt like he was suffocating.

He was blind, at least temporarily, but most likely permanently. His fingers skimmed the skin around his eyes, the flesh there was scabbed and raw. The likelihood of his sight ever returning disappeared even more then. Not only was he now blind, he was also locked in a cage somewhere he had little hope of figuring out. He could be hours away from Paris or just around the block from the Opera House, and he’d be none the wiser. And then there was the incoming withdrawal that would no doubt soon wreck his body with an unforgiving hold.

Even if he waited out the agony of a few days of drug withdrawal, the chance of him escaping was nonexistent. Erik rested against one side of the metal bars and brought his knees to his chin. His trembling hands snaked into his hair and held tight as he started to rock. There was no escape. Not then, not tomorrow, not ever. What drove him mad with grief though was the thought that he had no hope of ever _seeing_ Christine again.


End file.
